Night #4 of POP Montreal was cold and damp, enough to force Lee Ranaldo’s scheduled rooftop show indoors – but damn, if it wasn’t hot as hell inside Club Soda for indie rock icons Built to Spill. While their double-bill of special guests showed the crowd a couple of cool tricks with a six-string, Doug Martsch and his crew delivered a masters’ class on guitar-rock odysseys. Though sometimes eclipsed by tumultuous contemporaries like Pavement and Dinosaur Jr., Built to Spill’s always been around – and their craftsmanship and concentration on-stage seem to be the key to that longevity.
Up first was the aptly-named Clarke and the Himselfs, from Built to Spill’s own Boise, Idaho. To no great surprise, the Himselfs are a one-man indie rock band – composed entirely of Clarke Aleksandr Howell, an open-tuned guitar, and a basic drum kit. Despite the stripped-down setup, Clarke really does make the most of his sound, using ample doses of reverb for a meatier guitar and what almost sounds like double-tracked vocals. Howell’s songs are necessarily simple, but effective – and although the cracks in his gimmick started to wear a little thin with an overly rigid and lifeless cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire”, it was a kick to see the DIY ethos of indie rock taken to its extreme conclusion.
After Clarke’s last song (complete with whistle solo) came Toronto quartet Crosss, immediately turning up the volume with their droning vocals and sludgy guitars. I feel bad for foolhardy showgoers that tried to carry a conversation over the ear-splitting art-gloom, a showcase for Nathan Doucet’s thunderous next-level drumming. Admittedly, I did have trouble getting into a groove with Crosss – but their oppressive and claustrophobic improvisations make me think that my discomfort might be by design. And while singer/guitarist Andy March’s lyrics were nearly undecipherable, there is a unique yelping quality to his voice that is not wholly unlike that of Animal Collective’s Panda Bear fronting a Master of Reality-era Black Sabbath – a mental image that makes me laugh, even with all the drones and doom.
Built to Spill took the stage a little earlier than 10 PM, backed by bizarre projections from friend and artistic collaborator Mike Scheer (responsible for, among others, the cover to 2006’s You In Reverse). After the mud and drones of Crosss, it was a pleasure to hear Martsch et al. open with the melodic “So” – a celebration of solitude and the penultimate track from this spring’s Untethered Moon, their first record in six years. A five-piece group with three guitars, Built to Spill’s setup sounds like it could get out of hand at any second – but a band with an entrenched legacy of multi-movement songs and extended jams has, by now, figured out just how to stay in control.
Although Martsch kept his banter to a polite minimum throughout the set, this seems to stem less from a lack of warmth than from the focus on his performance and his mighty guitar heroics. The presence of crowd-balloons and a beach ball helped keep the proceedings extra-light, in case anyone forgot they were watching an act from the 90s festival circuit. Further supporting the nostalgia was the structure of the setlist itself, which contained only 3 new tunes in favour of career highlights and fan-favourites – including mixtape classic “Car” and standout jam-journeys “Randy Described Eternity” and “Kicked It in the Sun” off of Perfect From Now On.
Extended solos and guitar acrobatics might sound tiresome on paper, but Built to Spill’s journeys through the cosmos never sound tossed-off or directionless. Martsch’s songs always seem to have purpose and momentum, anchored by pensive lyrics and the signature creak of his Neil Youngian timbre. Even through the encore’s tributes to Blue Oyster Cult and The Smiths, Built to Spill never gave in to the temptation of overindulgence, navigating through the classics before planting one final flag in the rock n’ roll canon with their closing masterpiece, “Carry the Zero”.
Built to Spill setlist:
So
The Plan
Stab
Time Trap
Living Zoo
Kicked It in the Sun
Never Be the Same
Three Years Ago Today
Life’s a Dream
Liar
Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss
Randy Described Eternity
Car
Encore:
(Don’t Fear) The Reaper [Blue Oyster Cult cover]
How Soon Is Now? [The Smiths cover]
Carry the Zero
Review – Dan Corber
Share this :
